Long before Webber
approached him, Spencer's right hand had been on the .32 caliber
revolver hidden

in his jacket.
Leaping to his feet, Arthur drew the gun on Webber, Spencer began
backing away, with the gun aimed at the detective. Arthur moved out
through the rear of the car. He made it to the small platform behind
the coach, with Webber following him, barely kept at a distance by
the brandished gun

Webber dove for the revolver. The two men fought over the
gun,rolling about on the hard metal platform. Webber wrested the
gun away. During this battle, Arthur fell off the moving train.

He sprang to his
feet, having lost both his gun and his satchel. Arthur began running
west, along the tracks. The wiry man had walked hundreds of miles in
the past few months and was in top physical condition. Normally,
Spencer would expect that he could outrun any railroad man

As the train's momentum subsided, Webber jumped down onto the berm
of the track. With a burst of speed that greatly exceeded Spencer's,
the athletic detective was closing fast on the fleeing, older man.

Sensing this,
Spencer turned right and ran toward higher ground. The newspapers
said that he ran

toward "the top of
the mountain that is there." Locals would more correctly refer to
such a geological

formation as "a
ridge." Spencer began heading toward the top of the ridge on the
Maryland side,

The ascent was
quite steep. It some places, the angle of Arthur's climb greatly
exceeded 45 degrees. Climbing such an incline is immediately
exhausting, and must be done on all fours, moving like a dog.

In his The Youth's
Companion story, "The Battle for Life," Spencer wrote, "Before I
realized it, he was

coming toward me
with the speed of a whirlwind." Webber overtook the suspect and
tackled him on the

hillside, about
thirty feet above the level of the tracks

The two men
exchanged blows and wrestled, with Spencer kicking and fighting as
if for his life. Robert

Webber,
well-practiced in the tactics required, began blasting hard right
fists into Arthur's head and

jugular, and the
animal trainer yelled for mercy

The two combatants
were about 3,000 feet west of the train station at Point of Rocks,
and quite a good

distance up the
stony soil of the ridge. Experienced with animals who resist being
moved, Spencer

simply refused to
walk. He lay on the ground, offering no assistance toward being
taken to the station

"Walk!" yelled
Webber. Spencer still refused.Webber grabbed the 150-pound man by
the ankles and began dragging him down the abrasive slope. As
Spencer sledded down the stony hillside on his back, the pain he
felt was immediately agonizing. He screamed for Webber to stop, but
Webber shouted, "I'll drag you down this hill until your hide rips
off!" And so he continued. Spencer yelled, "I'll stand! I'll stand!"
Forced to walk, Arthur was taken to the station at Point of Rocks.

Arriving at the
depot with the prisoner, Robert Webber was informed that Washington
County Sheriff

Samuel P. Angle
had sent a telegram to all stations along the line saying that the
suspect known as

"Everett" had
eluded him.

Robert Webber
instructed the telegrapher to send this message to Sheriff Angle in
Winchester, "I have